As strawberry season rolls through California lets give it up to this amazing fruit. It is high in fiber, second only to the blueberry in antioxidants, a great source of vitamin C, and that sweet juicy flavor is an unforgettable staple of fresh goodness.
Lets talk strawberry pie. There are a lot of variations out there so this is a recipe you can go buck wild with. I’m sticking with a low fat, low sugar but substituting back to the real deal is easy breezy.
Basic must haves include strawberries, cornstarch, sugar and pie shell.
Pie shells include gram cracker, a regular flour and butter piecrust, or my new find crescent roll crust. For both the regular and the crescent roll crust precook it. I used a crescent roll crust. Unroll, press it into the pan, bake according to the directions on the package, and let cool. The crescent roll crust is a wonderful flaky light crust that works well with fruit pies and the reduced fat kind can be used.
For the filling throw strawberries, cornstarch, sugar, and water into a pan and boil until thick. This doesn’t take a lot of heat or very long.
Start with a bunch (1-2 cups) of strawberries fresh, frozen, puréed or solid
1-4 tbsp cornstarch
¼- ¾ cup sugar
1 cup water
For the sugar I used 1 ½ tbsp Sun Crystals that is a sugar/stevia blend. I also mixed in 1 tbsp sugar free strawberry jello and some recipes call for vanilla cook and serve pudding.
My extra was a cream cheese base. So before you pour the mixture into the pie curst mix up cream cheese, sugar, and a little milk. Spread on bottom of crust and put some fresh strawberries down for a little extra fresh kick. To lower the fat in recipes don’t use the fat free cream cheese, it just doesn’t work out, but the 1/3 reduced fat is amazing for cooking and baking.
Cream Cheese mixture-
4 oz cream cheese
1-2 tbsp sugar
1-2 tbsp milk
Blend together and you’ve got a cream cheese base for any fruit pie and it makes for a good fruit dip.
YUMMY!
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